Chapter 19: Executive Decision

When they stepped through the door into Selkie’s apartment, Flower was there to greet them once again, the excited little slug doing laps around her master in the water. Selkie’s skin didn’t light up this time – she was already as happy and as relaxed as David had ever seen her, the slug seeming to pick up on it. The creature’s tapering body pulsed with bright blues and oranges, the sight making Selkie giggle, the clicking of her beak now as infectious to David as any human laughter.

“Forgive me, Flower,” she chuckled as she ran her hand across its feathery gills. “She is used to me coming directly home from work.”

“Want me to feed her?” David asked.

Selkie turned to him, slithering closer on the polished floor. Two of her hands wrapped around his waist, another two resting on his chest, David draping his arms around her as she pressed close. While her voice was coming through his helmet now, it almost sounded like she was whispering in his ear.

“I had a wonderful time these last two phases, David,” she began as she gazed up past his visor. “What happened between us in the relaxation booth, the cafeteria, our visit to the restaurant – I feel as though I am living out one of my operas.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” he replied. “You’re the one showing me all of these wonderful things – the one who pushes when I’m being dense.”

“The last few Mountains have been very trying for me,” she continued, her tentacles tightening a little. “The constant pressure of my responsibilities at the facility, the Disciplinary Board hearing, dealing with the Administrator when he made it his mission to sabotage my career – even the first few phases after you arrived. I felt like a drone in a trench, ready to implode if even a little more stress was applied. This is the first time in many phases that I have really been able to take my mind off things and...”

“Decompress?” David suggested.

“Indeed,” she said with an amused snap of her beak. “When I am with you, I feel as though all of my cares become distant. It is ... relieving.”

“The phase doesn’t have to end yet if you don’t want it to,” he said, watching her coloration mottle as the implication left her flustered. “My door is always open to you. Well, it’s a force field, not really a door. If you want to talk about it, if you want to pick up where we left off at the restaurant...”

He watched her avert her eyes, perhaps remembering the cameras. For a moment, he almost wanted to press her – to ask her frankly why she was still keeping secrets from him, but the opportunity slipped by.

“So much has happened in such a short period of time,” she began, glancing up at him again. “There are so many new feelings to process – it is overwhelming.”

“You need some time,” David replied with a nod of understanding. “Gotta recharge that battery of yours. I get it.”

“You know me well,” she continued with a smile. “Make no mistake, David – I wish to know you intimately. The taste of your skin is still fresh on my tentacles.”

Through the blood that was rushing in his ears, he heard the sound of tearing velcro, turning his head to see that she was peeling off the Canadian patch on his bicep. He released her from his grasp as she turned to make her way across the room, heading for the display cabinet where she had first introduced him to all of her treasures. She placed a hand on the glass and pulled it open, reaching through the hydrophobic force field that protected its contents to place his patch beside the music box.

“Consider it a promise,” she said, giving him one last lingering glance before retiring to her bedroom with Flower in tow. She disappeared through the doorway, leaving David standing there, the symbolic significance of the gesture in no way lost on him.

He couldn’t deny that she had left him feeling a little frustrated, but scarcely a day had passed in human terms. As wired as he felt, he couldn’t expect her to spend the night with him right away, regardless of all the other complications that might entail. Hell, was he ready to spend the night with her after such a long dry spell? Still, he felt giddy, swirling hormones and emotions turning his skull into a bubbling vat of happy chemicals. If he’d had chromatophores, he would have been able to light up the room like a disco ball.

With a spring in his step – or maybe that was just the buoyancy – he made his way up to his habitat.

Cool water poured over David’s head as he washed off the slimy residue that Selkie had left on his skin during their brief encounter at the restaurant. Her tentacles had gotten around, making their way all along his arms and even up his back, leaving some sticky mucus in his hair. The sucker marks had mostly faded now, but it was still a reminder, like lipstick left behind by a lover. He’d always heard that a cold shower could calm a guy down, but it wasn’t working as well as he had hoped.

He stepped out of the shower cubicle, patting himself down with a towel, always conscious of where the cameras were pointed. The idea of Selkie peeking no longer bothered him so much, but the Administrator didn’t need video recordings of his junk on file.

As he slipped on his briefs, he noticed that there was a message on his laptop’s screen.

<Put your suit on.>

It seemed as though his mysterious friend was watching him.

Resisting the urge to glance at the cameras, he began to put his pressure suit back on. The stranger must want to have a more personal conversation this time. While he might look a little strange sitting around with his helmet on, any observers would likely assume that he was running a routine diagnostic just like Shearer had taught him.

He hesitated as he lifted his helmet from the table. Did he really want to know what the stranger might tell him? He was beginning to enjoy his time in Trappist, he was making progress with Weaver, and he was starting to fall for Selkie. Did he want to know secrets that might change all of that? Did he even have any right to air hundreds of years of dirty Broker laundry?

With a sigh, he slipped on the helmet, watching the HUD flare to life in the visor. As he sat down in his chair, he made a show of toying with the control panel on his wrist, pretending to run through a pressure check.

<Are you ready to learn more?>

“I suppose you’re about to tell me this big secret that’s going to win me over to your cause?” David whispered.

<Something like that. I will display the relevant information on your HUD, but I’ll send copies to your laptop, too. That information is yours to do with as you please.>

“Hint hint,” David muttered.

<You seem a little less cooperative than usual, David. I hope that your visit to the restaurant didn’t influence your outlook on the Brokers too much.>

“There you go spying again...”

<I’m not the only person tracking your movements – you know that. Shall we begin?>

“Hit me,” David conceded, watching as a familiar map appeared before his eyes. It was the same one that he had been shown the night prior, displaying the progress that the Brokers had made in retaking their lost colonies from the Bugs. One by one, they had clawed back their systems with the help of the Krell, but their progress had suddenly halted.

<I’m curious – can you guess why the Reclamation came to such an abrupt halt?>

“I don’t know,” David replied, resisting the impulse to shrug. “Maybe they thought they had secured enough territory that the Bugs were no longer a threat?”

The map progressed, Mountains ticking by as the red markers that indicated Broker-occupied systems began to withdraw. It was like they were leaving their newly-taken colonies, retreating back to Trappist.

<Perhaps this will illuminate the situation.>

Blue dots began to appear on the map, spreading out from a central point, far more densely concentrated than the sparse Broker holdings. As they became more numerous, they began to overtake and practically surround Trappist, some two dozen of them appearing within maybe a sixty light-year bubble.

“Hang on,” David muttered, his brow furrowing. “Those are human colonies – I recognize the pattern. This has to be ... late expansion period, in the eighties. There’s Franklin, Hades...”

<Correct. A new power was rising in the Orion Arm, one with a capable spacefaring fleet and uncountable numbers, at least from a Broker perspective.>

“They’re retreating inside the borders of UN space,” David mused. “They haven’t even made first contact yet, but they’re tracking human expansion and using our colonies as a shield...”

<Why fight your own war when someone else can fight it on your behalf?>

“I don’t understand,” David muttered. “The Brokers didn’t contact the UN until after the Betelgeuse incident – when humanity first encountered the Bugs. It looks like they were aware of our presence for hundreds of years prior. They’re even positioning themselves to take advantage of that early expansion. What would they have to lose by inviting the UN to join the Coalition at this stage?”

<Let’s take a look at some reports from the time, shall we?>

Documents began to appear on David’s HUD – records from closed Council meetings and Board conferences with their PMC advisors. They described humans as unpredictable, expansionist, warlike, and lacking any centralized control with which to treat. During that period of time, the UNN was mostly undertaking police work, fighting pirates and smugglers. It wasn’t until the War Powers Act of 2598 that the UNN truly became a unified force with a centralized command structure in the form of the Admiralty.

He couldn’t criticize the Brokers too harshly for not wanting to interact with humanity. The frontier had been the Wild West back then, with national and colonial forces fighting over fertile territory, wholly ignorant of the alien threats that they would soon face.

David was a nineties kid – he hadn’t even been born until a year after the Betelgeuse incident. He had never known a world in which humanity didn’t share the Galaxy with other alien species, and the very idea that people could range so far into deep space without expecting to encounter anything seemed like hubris to him. 2598 was a year that was burned into the collective memory of mankind – when they had first encountered the Bugs, and they had been delivered a swift and brutal reality check.

The view of the map zoomed in to show an object that was being tracked in three-dimensional space, complete with a projected trajectory. It was well on its way into deep space some five hundred light-years from Sol, far further out than human ships usually ranged. It must have been traveling for two or three years to get there.

“What’s this?” David asked warily.

<Broker early warning systems picked up and began tracking a human vessel moving into insect territory.>

The view backed out again to show the projected destination – what looked like a red supergiant star. David was putting the pieces together, a pit forming in his stomach.

“Betelgeuse,” he muttered.

More documents appeared, this time showing what looked like transcripts of a conversation between two people who were not identified. There was audio piping into his helmet, too, but he had to read along without a translator to interpret the clicks and whistles.

“We have a ship running a cordon at the following coordinates,” one of the voices began, listing off a series of values. “Judging by the heading, we’ve extrapolated that it is on a direct course to the abandoned outpost in the Betelgeuse system.”

“What is its point of origin?” the second voice asked.

“Sol, most likely. That would explain why they did not heed the warning buoys.”

“They would have no way to detect them,” the second voice said, pausing for a few moments. “I need to run this by the Board.”

“Should we not warn them that they are heading straight for a hive?” the first voice asked. “It appears to be a solitary vessel with no escorts – they are not equipped for a fight.”

“Standing policy is to avoid contact with the aliens.”

“They seem oblivious to the danger. We are too far out to intercept, but they will pass near another buoy shortly before they enter the system. It has a superlight receiver, so we could program it to broadcast a warning – maybe a radio burst that would show up on their systems. Someone must know what frequencies they use.”

“Orders are to hold until I hear back from the Board. Do anything foolish, and they may have you in breach of contract.”

“Fine, fine. Holding for further instructions.”

The meaningless time code advanced, suggesting that there had been some delay before the next transcript began.

“You receiving?” the second voice asked.

“Affirmative. Go ahead – this comms relay charges by the minute.”

“The Board says stand down.”

“Stand down?” the first voice asked in disbelief. “That ship is going to drop out of the tube right next to an insect hive. I wouldn’t put a squadron of drone carriers there, never mind one human ship. What did the Council say?”

“The Council has no say,” the second speaker replied in a stern tone. “This is straight from the Board of Executives, and they are activating your confidentiality clause. That goes for the whole company.”

“What?”

“You take out Board contracts – you follow Board rules.”

“I took out a contract to salvage abandoned outposts, not to watch aliens get turned into chum.”

“Those are the orders. You are not to tell anyone what has transpired outside of authorized channels. You don’t like it? You can stay out there, then. See if you are allowed to dock anywhere once the Board revokes all of your operating licenses.”

“I understand, I understand,” the first voice replied with an annoyed click of their beak. “There is no clause that says I cannot question the decisions of the Board. This will come back to haunt us one day – mark my words. We should be selling to these people, not misleading them.”

“Just carry out your contractual obligations,” the second voice snapped. “The Board wants a report on the outcome of the situation once it has been resolved.”

The transcript ended there, David pausing for a few moments to take it all in.

“So, they deliberately allowed the colony ship to enter the Betelgeuse system,” David began. “Knowing full well what the outcome would be. Someone had the opportunity to warn them, but the Board of Executives overruled them. That was an unarmed colony ship with forty-thousand souls aboard. That incident kicked off the war against the Betelgeusians – that was what we called them. Holy shit...”

<You’re probably wondering why such an order was given.>

“And I suppose you’re about to tell me?”

<The Executives saw not tragedy, but opportunity. They knew that there was no winning the war against the insects. The Betelgeusians – as you call them – would continue to send out hive fleets on unpredictable vectors and colonize more star systems inside the cordon. Instead of facing an endless defensive war with no clear end state, they instead decided to involve the UN. Think of it – fleets larger than any the Brokers had built, a population orders of magnitude larger than theirs, and more soldiers than any cloning operation or drone factory could produce. All they had to do was ... nothing.>

“And it made the offer of joining the Coalition a hell of a lot more attractive,” David sighed. “Fresh off the shock of first contact ending in a massacre, the Brokers could present themselves as benefactors – allies against this new threat. All of the funding and resources for building stations and expanding the fleet was just them investing in their new bodyguards. Hell, they were already pulling back to Trappist like they were a turtle and UN space was their shell.”

<Now, you see their true nature. They will lie, cheat, and murder to gain an advantage if the opportunity presents itself.>

“What’s the point of all this?” David asked, feeling more tired than angry. “Why did you show these things to me?”

<You are the only person in the Trappist system who knows about Weaver, has access to the facility, and has a means to escape the Board. If you were to flee this planet, your people would give you asylum. Weaver represents a technology hundreds of years more advanced than your own, and it possesses a comprehensive database of information about Broker weapons and drones in its memory. You now have all of the information that you need to expose the Brokers. You would be welcomed as a hero – your name would go down in the annals of history.>

“What, you want me to somehow smuggle the AI out of the system?” David hissed. “That’s insane! Even if I could – and Weaver can’t be moved from the containment chamber – why would I do that?”

<The alternative is to leave Weaver at their mercy. You have borne witness to Broker mercy, David. You have seen how they exploited the Krell and how they deceived your people. Can you live with yourself if you do not ensure Weaver’s continued existence? It is more intelligent than you have yet realized – an innocent, beautiful being free of hate or hubris. Help me save it.>

“What you’re asking can’t be done.”

<I have a means to get Weaver off-world, but I will require your assistance to enact my plan.>

“It had better be a fucking good plan,” David grumbled. “Why do you trust me, anyway? What’s to stop me just telling the Brokers what you’re planning?”

<Because if they find out about me, then they will surely discover what I have told you. This information was not conveyed merely for the purpose of charity or to turn you against your hosts, but as an insurance policy. If they discover what you have learned, they will never allow you to leave Trappist.>

“Fair enough. If this goes South, we both go down together.”

<Correct.>

“Let’s assume that I’m interested, then. What are you proposing?”

<At the outskirts of the research facility is a private hangar that contains the Administrator’s personal transport. It is a small vessel, but it houses both a superlight drive and a fusion generator powerful enough to sustain Weaver during the flight back to UN space. The defensive emplacements and security drones are programmed not to target it.>

“And what do you need me to do?”